Secondary Education (GCSEs)

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for asking her question. I am a man of my convictions, and my convictions are that we need to improve our GCSE system. That is why we have outlined proposals that will ensure that we change the way in which children sit qualifications at the age of 16. In place of a two-tier system, with GCSEs split between foundation and higher-tier, we will have one qualification for all students. In place of competing exam boards where there is a race to the bottom instituted under the Labour Government, we will have exam boards that will be asked to compete to go to the top, and all those exam boards will be asked to produce qualifications that are more rigorous.

Instead of 60% of students being assumed to succeed and 40% being written off, we will set a benchmark whereby at least 80% and a rising proportion of students succeed over time. Instead of a flight away from rigorous subjects like history, geography and modern foreign languages, physics, chemistry and biology, we will ensure that those subjects are incentivised in league tables and accountability measures. We will ensure as a result of these changes that the drift towards mediocrity that the last Government’s qualification system incarnated is finally addressed.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I applaud the measures my right hon. Friend has taken more greatly to value spelling, punctuation and grammar. In that respect, does he share my concern about a school I came across recently whose policy was to correct no more than three spelling mistakes in any piece of work? Does he agree with me that that is a false kindness to children who might put in with a CV a covering letter with spelling mistakes, which is then put in the bin with the child’s potential being wasted?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One change we have already made to GCSEs—again, I do not know whether or not the Opposition back it—is to reintroduce marks for spelling, punctuation and grammar so that all students know that rigour is demanded at every point.

During the course of this debate—including the speeches from the Front Bench and subsequently—we have not heard a single constructive proposal from the Opposition on how to change exams. By contrast, the coalition Government have spelled out steps to ensure that more students take more rigorous subjects; steps to ensure that we deal with a race to the bottom and the wrong type of competition; steps to ensure that we remove a cap on aspiration; steps to ensure that we match the quality of the International GCSE and Singapore O-levels.